A green group’s partisan anti-McKenna rant

The Washington Conservation Voters, a group with bipartisan roots, has launched a strident, partisan and factually questionable attack against Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna in a holiday season e-mail money appeal.

McKenna

“McKenna is running a campaign tied to some of the worst polluters and corporate offenders out there: He kicked off his campaign with Karl Rove, the ‘architect’ behind George Bush’s reelection, and hasn’t looked back,” Edie Giles, WCV’s political director, writes.

The WCV letter asks for help to “kick off a strong 2012 campaign for Jay Inslee,” and tells would-be donors: “Be in good company.”

But its exaggerations go beyond even standard-issue hyperbole, demonizing and fear-mongering of political money appeals.

McKenna kicked off his 2012 campaign with a Nov. 8 breakfast in Bellevue. Karl Rove was nowhere on the premises. The crowd did include such Republican conservationists as ex-Gov. Dan Evans.

Rove was featured speaker at State Republicans’ fall dinner on Oct. 18. McKenna arrived late, after the big givers’ private receptions. The event raised money for party-building events, not the McKenna campaign.

Inslee

Washington Conservation Voters endorsed Inslee, a congressman who has championed renewable energy development, shortly before its own Oct. 7 breakfast. Its national parent, League of Conservation Voters, is breaking a tradition of neutrality in gubernatorial races and backing Inslee.

A table full of “green” Republicans, including Secretary of State Sam Reed, sat uneasily at the breakfast as League of Conservation Voters boss Gene Karpinski showered praise on Inslee, and the congressman followed with a stem winder.

The group has endorsed a few Republicans in recent elections, while the Sierra Club was backing an all-Democratic lineup.

But the e-mail appeal indicates that WCV is becoming a virtual arm of the Inslee campaign, saying: “In 2012, Washington Conservation Voters will be focused on making sure Washington voters know that Rob McKenna is tied to anti-environmental extremists.”

The WCV fundraiser tries to link McKenna with other Democratic devil figures, claiming that McKenna is “raising money from” the billionaire Koch Brothers, whose oil fortune has been used to bankroll the Tea Party.

No supporting evidence is given, just more hyperbole linking the Koch brothers to Wisconsin’s anti-union Gov. Scott Walker.

After taking liberties with the truth, the WCV fundraiser concludes: “We will not let Rob McKenna hide from his friends or the truth.”

The state’s leading political voice for the environment may be helping Inslee, but the fundraising letter isn’t going to help WCV’s reputation. And what kind of reception will WCV get if McKenna wins?